A few years back, I purchased a lot of ten wall safes, which were removed from some sort of correctional facility. They look like the boxes used in sally ports, for a guard to check a sidearm, etc. before entering certain areas. Upon delivery, almost half the keys had gone missing, due to idiotic packing by the shipper.
So here's the deal. They have Medeco panel locks, which are most likely well beyond my abilities at the moment. But the safes can be opened by making a 1" hole in the rear plate, and passing through a nut-driver to remove the pawl / lever from the rear of the cylinder. This is no huge deal, I have access to a metal shop.
But assuming I get them open, is there any way to salvage the locks - or am I looking at an eBay search for a deal on a few replacements? New retail on these locks is just nuts.. not something I'd care to put out for them.
Depends on the keyway. If you can get blanks, you can take those locks apart and file keys if you are careful. Done it dozens of times, despite a Medeco dealer here in town saying it is impossible to hand file a key for a Medeco. Take your time, and you can do it.
Good luck!
Gordon
Just when you finally think you have learned it all, that is when you learn that you don't know anything yet.
Well, I most definitely don't have access to blanks, at least not as of the present. And like yourself, I find the "can't file a replacement" statement to be pretty silly.
I mean to say.. exactly what about the pattern cannot be duplicated with careful filing? I don't even see that 'pricey' files would be a requirement.. as ever, the quality / success of most work is down to the tradesman, not the tool.
But even if I were to remove the locks from their chassis, wouldn't I still need to unlock the cylinders**, so they could be extracted & examined? Presently, I'm no where near set up (skill or tool-wise) to manipulate Medeco stuff.
(ETA: ** then again, maybe not.. it seems that I can extract the cylinder, from a "locked" mechanism..?)
ETA #2: please excuse my terminology.. I believe these are properly known as "cam locks"?
legendre wrote:A few years back, I purchased a lot of ten wall safes, which were removed from some sort of correctional facility. They look like the boxes used in sally ports, for a guard to check a sidearm, etc. before entering certain areas. Upon delivery, almost half the keys had gone missing, due to idiotic packing by the shipper.
So here's the deal. They have Medeco panel locks, which are most likely well beyond my abilities at the moment. But the safes can be opened by making a 1" hole in the rear plate, and passing through a nut-driver to remove the pawl / lever from the rear of the cylinder. This is no huge deal, I have access to a metal shop.
But assuming I get them open, is there any way to salvage the locks - or am I looking at an eBay search for a deal on a few replacements? New retail on these locks is just nuts.. not something I'd care to put out for them.
Thoughts?
Can you post a picture of the lock close up for the profile and a wide one to show the panel
mhole wrote:In my limited experience Medeco cam locks are fairly trivial to open by raking. I'd try that as first port of call.
I know they can be raked open, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as "fairly trivial" to do so. I know a lot of highly skilled pickers who are still plagued by these. While I've seen a number of people who have successfully raked them open, I haven't seen many who can do it regularly and repeatably on different locks. At least within my circle of locksmithing and lockpicking acquaintances.
In fact the first guy I know of who was able to show online that he could rake a non-rigged Medeco cam lock open (maybe 9 or 10 years ago, I forget exactly when), people who were present described the shower of brass dust that usually accompanied the process. I've seen some Medeco cam locks whose pins had been scrubbed so vigorously by raking that the key would no longer work and all the pins had to be replaced. Hopefully the brass dust shower was the result of the locks being raked open so many times the nickel plating had rubbed off. That plating can be fairly durable so if the OP is raking his open hopefully they won't be damaged. Raking these DOES work. Sometimes. I just don't know if I'd count on it as a reliable method for the average picker. You've been around long enough I don't think I'd doubt it if you say you're one of the ones who can, and if you've had better success than most, then my hat's off to you. Sincerely. I know of few people who can do it on a semi-consistent basis.
legendre wrote:But the safes can be opened by making a 1" hole in the rear plate, and passing through a nut-driver to remove the pawl / lever from the rear of the cylinder. This is no huge deal, I have access to a metal shop.
But assuming I get them open, is there any way to salvage the locks - or am I looking at an eBay search for a deal on a few replacements? New retail on these locks is just nuts.. not something I'd care to put out for them.
Thoughts?
It's been too many years since I serviced any Medeco cam locks but if my memory isn't failing me, if you can remove the nut and cam from the rear of the lock you should be able to easily remove the core. After that you just have to pry off the cap strip from the top (gently if you want to reuse it) and remove the pins to decode the bitting.
I'd hope that a correctional facility was wise enough to use a restricted keyway, but if not and your locks use the most common Medeco cam lock keyway, generic blanks are made by Ilco. If your cylinders do have a restricted keyway and you're unable to get some blanks you could always try making some since you have access to a metal shop. If that doesn't work, you could always sell the keyless locks to pickers like the people on this forum to help defray the cost of new locks off eBay. There are frequently auctions on eBay for Medeco cam locks with keys if you don't want to pay retail.
I'm not sure what qualifies as a restricted keyway, but there +is+ a land which projects horizontally into the keyway, which would tend to interfere with a picking tool. The key has a matching slot to clear the land.
But what seems to be a bigger issue is a spring detent, on the cylinder. It requires a fairly substantial starting torque to get the cylinder moving - I assume this is also an anti-picking feature..
Thinking hard about just replacing them with $10 generic cam locks. The safes have been around here for too long, and I'm planning to sell them - which is the whole point of this exercise. Need to have something functional to offer...
Unless you all know someone local (to me..) who's interested in acquiring a couple locked key safes..
BTW - Can't say for sure, but these may also have been removed from hotel rooms. But you know the type I'm talking about, just about the right size for two or three handguns and a bunch of ammo.
mhole wrote:In my limited experience Medeco cam locks are fairly trivial to open by raking. I'd try that as first port of call.
Yes, I "must be new here" - so is this a joke, or what? =P
That said, the tailpiece on the cylinder is made of brass, with deeply cut coarse threads (5/16-20?). I could see that piece becoming fatigued and snapping off, if you could put a bend in it. Threads offer so many opportunities for cracks to start..
mhole wrote:In my limited experience Medeco cam locks are fairly trivial to open by raking. I'd try that as first port of call.
Yes, I "must be new here" - so is this a joke, or what? =P
I think its trivial if you've been doing this hobby for 5 to 10 years or hanging out with people in this hobby who pick Medecos for fun.
Here's me having some fun with a set of Bogota rake picks and picking a Medeco with one hand.
If you've never picked a lock before and don't have the proper picks/rakes/Bogotas, and you don't have a good mental image of how a Medeco cam lock works and how it feels when pins are set and rotated, then it won't be fairly trivial for you.
There's something to be said for luck though when it comes to raking these locks.
Ugh, I totally messed up a previous post, and now it's too late to edit. Oh well.. I was trying to respond to the comment about Medeco locks breaking easily. Here's what I meant to write:
cledry wrote:Just don't pry on them Medeco cam locks break very easily.
Yes, I "must be new here" - so is this a joke, or what? =P
That said, the tailpiece on the cylinder is made of brass, with deeply cut coarse threads (5/16-20?). I could see that piece becoming fatigued and snapping off, if you could put a bend in it. Threads offer so many opportunities for cracks to start..
For clarity, below is my original, confused reply post..
legendre wrote:
mhole wrote:In my limited experience Medeco cam locks are fairly trivial to open by raking. I'd try that as first port of call.
Yes, I "must be new here" - so is this a joke, or what? =P
billdeserthills wrote:To the OP, Why not post a good close-up pic of your Medeco keyway? Then we can all argue about where to get that key!
That's not a bad idea at all, but as of this writing, it's a moot point. The safes are all sold-off to new owners, and they are now responsible for how they handle the issue.
I did tell them how to break-in the 'easy' way. Once that's complete, then the locks can be re-keyed or just replaced outright.
Take your time, and you can do it.
